Time runs out on Jack Bauer tonight in the series finale of 24, but you’ve still got three days to place your votes on the longlist for this year’s Golden Joysticks. To recap, in the “One to Watch” category, three of our upcoming titles (Brink, Fallout: New Vegas, and RAGE) are nominated. Meanwhile, you can still vote for Splash Damage (Brink) for UK Developer of the Year.

Speaking of Splash Damage, Paul Wedgwood, CEO and Game Director on Brink, recently took time to answer questions on Brink with Game Reactor. Here’s a snippet:

You’re focusing a lot on the story. How will it work in an online shooter, where there’s usually not a lot of room for storytelling?

The most important thing for us that no matter how you choose to play, online or offline, there’s a reason why you are fighting against the others in the game. It starts when you create your character and choose which side to play on: Resistance or Security? Resistance are refugees that believe in a society where everything shared by everyone, and that the Security people are violent dictators.

Finally, with the countdown clock to E3 right around three weeks, Gamespot is already looking ahead to the madness. Currently Fallout: New Vegas ranks among the most anticipated in their Readers’ Choice vote, while Senior News Editor Tor Thorsen lets us know he’s ready for more Fallout in their Editors’ Choice feature.

Update: We’ve spotted a new Hunted interview at GameZone with with inXile Entertainment’s Brian Fargo. Read it here.

I’m feeling a bit Brinkish today. Must be the weather — I heard the forecast was calling for parkour-packed action. In any case, around the web we go.

The fellas over at BRINKish.eu have a massive community Q&A with Brink creative director Richard Ham and lead game designer Neil Alphonso. If you ever wondered about anything from bullet penetration to turret deployments, that’s your interview. David Lynch of NowGamer (and Eraserhead) also got a chance to query Richard Ham, resulting in an equally monstrous four-page interview.

All the buzz on Brink has translated into some pretty exciting expectations. GamerZines is calling it the top shooter of 2010, saying: “It’s time for a new king at the top of the mountain, and we’re putting our weight behind Brink.”

And before the Fallout fans get antsy, MSN has a lengthy look at Fallout: New Vegas, providing a preview based on the recent press tour. “If you’ve played Fallout 3 and its accompanying hours of DLC to death, New Vegas looks just the ticket,” they say.

“Caddoc, on the other hand, moves his planet-sized frame with a Hercules-like gravitas. His attack style combines sword swipes with shield bashes; he’s a tank in the most traditional fantasy sense. And unlike E’lara, Caddoc’s execution moves are all about being up in his enemies’ faces. One sees him rip a skeleton’s arm off and knock its head clean off with it. Nice.”

For more on New Vegas, The BitBag has their preview online — complete with every bit of concept art and screenshots we recently released.

Moving along, GameSpy’s Will Tuttle and Ryan Scott interrogate each other while discussing RAGE. It’s nothing like what you’d see from Jack Bauer, but the segment is still called The Interrogation Room. Here’s an excerpt from Mr. Tuttle (not to be confused with the teacher from Bayside High)…

“The animations are remarkably smooth and realistic, even at this early stage (did we mention the game’s not out until next year?). I’m not typically the type of person who oohs and ahhs over shiny graphics, but I’ll be damned if this isn’t one of the finest-looking games I’ve seen in all of my years.”

Over at GoFanBoy, there’s a feature on the top franchise revivals in this generation of gaming. Among the five, Fallout makes their list.

Wrapping up this update, if you’re looking at doing space travel anytime soon, Armadillo Aerospace, founded by John Carmack, have a new deal with Space Adventures that will send folks out of this world for around five minutes. Read the MSNBC article here. Here’s hoping there’s a company discount :)!

Input overload! We continue to scour the web to find the latest previews out of our Gamers’ Day events… here’s our latest findings.

Inside Gaming Plus has a new RAGE interview with Matt Hooper, the game’s Design Director, who discusses the game’s story, vehicular play, weapons, and how they id is expanding upon the game’s core shooter experience. Watch it below.

Here’s a quick look at some new coverage from our press event, as well as some other bits from around the web…

As reported on Kotaku, the 2010 Guinness Book of World Records Gamer’s Edition features a list of the Top 50 video game series as voted by the gaming public. The list includes both Fallout (#13) and The Elder Scrolls (#29) on their list. You can order the book at Amazon.com here.

PSX Extreme has their Gamer’s Day preview for RAGE up — here’s a snippet from

“When you step back and view it all as one project, Rage really looks very, very promising, and we should also mention that those who have seen it in action say it looks gorgeous. Lastly, the game has finally reached the point where it evidently runs just as well on the PS3 as it does on the 360 and PC…”

In other RAGE-related news, Chris Faylor at Shacknews talked with team members at id Software about cutscenes and the opening for RAGE, working with ZeniMax, the game’s post-apocalyptic setting, and more.

Out of our European press event, we’ve got a pair of new Brink interviews for you to read. Games On Net chats with Senior Game Designer Ed Stern, while Paul Wedgwood is featured in an exclusive interview up at NowGamer. Additionally, you can read Inc Gamer’s preview here.

Rounding things out, Digitial Spy reveals that Rubi Malone was considered the Most Fanciable Female character in gaming — based on a survey My Voucher Codes. If you’re wondering why Raul the Ghoul from Fallout: New Vegas didn’t make the cut for the Most Fanciable Male character, it’s worth noting that only characters from released games were included.

“Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is damn near unbeatable. Sure the main storyline quest is beatable within a couple hours, but the main quest is nothing. There are literally hundreds of quests in this game, and given the world which Bethesda has created for you, you will definitely attempt to complete as many as you can. The fact that there are two huge expansion packs doesn’t make it any easier either.”

“It was this specific mission that appropriately demonstrated Oblivion’s breadth. The game allowed players to brazenly hack and slash their way through difficult scenarios or sneak past them. Each problem players were faced with could be approached from a number of angles. In essence, the Dagon Shrine proved that Oblivion catered to almost every type of role player, which is why it’s worthy of commemoration.”

One final bit on Oblivion. The latest (June) issue of OXM has a small feature titled, “The Developer’s Cut,” where developers discuss content from their games that didn’t make the final release. On page 87, Todd Howard discusses content cut from Oblivion. Head to your local newsstand (or your mailbox) to read it, as well as a new preview for Hunted: The Demon’s Forge.

Putting a bow around this roundup, author Grant Tavinor recently released a new book, The Art of Videogames, featuring Fallout 3 on the cover. Throughout the text, you can find references to DOOM, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 (I’m particularly interested in reading the chapter “The Morality of Videogames”). For more on the subject, Tavinor recently wrote a column for Kotaku in response to comments from film critic Roger Ebert.

Updated: GameSetWatch’s Emily Short has an in-depth look back at her play experience with Fallout 3. Read the article here.

With most of our department out on travel this week, Nick and I will be heading out in a few. But before we go, here’s some the latest we’ve seen around the web.

Brink Creative Director Richard Ham has been pretty busy with interviews as of late. This week he answered questions from UK site GamesTM, as well as a few community questions from Australian site Games On Net. Here’s an excerpt from the latter:

Otto-matic: If it is P2P, will you implement a strong localisation mechanism that makes it very unlikely for Australian gamers to suffer lag connecting to a US host?Richard: On PC, we’re fully supporting a traditional dedicated server system so connections should be fine and dandy. For consoles, we’re peer-to-peer and are definitely focusing on quality of service for all our matchmaking. We’re also keying our matchmaking on friends, so that should help give console players control over the quality of the connections.

We’re back with another “Around the Web” with plenty of good stuff to check out.

This morning on Kotaku, I spotted this awesome Fallout 3 fan art bey Deviant Artist Patrick Brown. Looks like I’ve got a new desktop background. You can find more of Patrick’s work here. And if you’ve got artwork to contribute to the blog, send it in…we’ll be putting up new entries soon.

In other Fallout community news, we got an email letting us know about a song titled “Vault 101″ by Kirby Krackle. Head to their website to give it a listen (lyrics can be found here).

Moving to Brink news, IncGamers has a new online interview with Splash Damage’s Paul Wedgwood, Richard Ham, and Ed Stern. The interview covers the gamut: Splash Damage’s roots, their staff, and their plans and goals for Brink. Props to IncGamers for their clever edits.

Neilie Johnson of GameShark has posted her impressions of Hunted: The Demon’s Forge. Head here to read the full preview, but first, here’s a snippet discussing some of the attacks you’ll have at your disposal:

“During the demo we were shown spells ‘Hellfire’, which shot a big ol’ fireball, and ‘Levitate’, which rendered enemies helpless by lifting them off the ground. We were also shown a co-operative mechanic called ‘Battlecharge’, in which one character charged up another with spells, giving both of them more power.”

Finally, at this year’s MI6 awards for marketing, our promotional video for WET, “Shot at Love”, won a Silver award. Congrats to the marketing teams here at Bethesda and Ayzenberg for their work.